Angelface
by Nakosha
Summary: The smartest woman in the penal system and beyond hunts the Necromongers' new leader, Lord Riddick. But the consequences of Riddick's actions bring them to the edge of utter darkness, where nothing is true and all is possible. Survival demands adaptation.
1. Chapter 1

Ah, the fat woman again.

I waited patiently for the corrections officers to handcuff me to the cold metal chair—first the wrists, and then the ankles, all of which were already locked in cuffs of their own—and considered the conversation we would have today.

_"Miss Batista, what makes you do these things? You know you'll be stuck in prison forever if you don't stop killing in here."_

Am I to understand, Mrs. Umplett, that you would instead have me kill out there?

_"You can stop anytime you want to. You have power over your life."_

Oh, I know.

The security door groaned and she shuffled in, bracelets jingling on her thick white arms like bells around calves' necks. Her watery hazel eyes, sunken into the flesh of her rouged face, were like pig's eyes as she smiled for the officers and sat down across from me. They were fairly intelligent eyes, and ruthless, but any power she might have had was buried beneath mountains of self-doubt. She sighed a little sigh I'm certain she thinks is endearing and opened her portfolio-briefcase, which smelled of Italian leather.

"This will be recorded. Hello, Alessandra." Her tongue darted out like an eel from its red-lipped cave to lick at a finger and thumb. I believe she quit smoking cigarettes some time ago, but not soon enough to prevent the telltale vertical wrinkles above and below her mouth, which she attempts each morning to conceal with foundation and powder. She began to make a great show of shuffling her papers around, and I watched her mind working, preparing her speech.

"Hello, Maya," I replied politely from my steel chair.

She stopped shuffling after a few moments and clasped her small, pudgy hands over the stack. Really, they were dainty hands, but they ended in inch-long acrylic nails in ruby-red, a fashion which I have always found somewhat grotesque. Mrs. Umplett, ever the brilliant psychologist, noticed my attentions.

"I got them done yesterday. You don't like them?"

"They're very unattractive," I answered. "Did you know that long nails are symbolic of wealth and power? A man or woman with long nails does no manual labor for him or herself. The idleness of the aristocrat."

She showed her teeth to me and her eyes were momentarily lost in the folds of her enormous face, but I knew I had offended her. She was so _terribly_ insecure. "I always learn something new from you, Alessandra. You know, it surprises me..." She flipped through her reports until she found what she was looking for. "It surprises me," she continued, "that with an IQ like yours, you're wasting away in jail. You broke the curve in almost every test you've taken. You could be doing so many great things." And fixing me with a sad little gaze, she waited for me to make my response. I could smell her breath even though she was breathing through her nose. Her lungs worked very hard for her.

"Well," I said, trying not to inhale when she exhaled, "I'm not here for my own amusement." It was true. I always tell the truth.

She sighed again. "Miss Batista, you're not mentally ill, and you're not stupid. _You_ have the power to improve, to set your life straight. You have the power to be healed. Why do you continue to sabotage yourself?"

"You're referring to yesterday's incident. Kimberly Long." The dead woman, the so-called _femme_.

"Yes, yes I am. Can you talk to me about that?"

"Of course. She and her friends have attacked me on several occasions out of jealousy. They claim their 'studs' find me desirable. They call me 'Angelface.'"

"It's not easy to be as beautiful as you are in an all-female prison," Mrs. Umplett intoned sagely. She had a rather annoying habit of stating the blatantly obvious as though it were a kernel of wisdom. Along with her sighing and her vanity, it made her nearly unbearable at times.

"Mrs. Umplett, have you ever read _Ender's Game_?" Of course, she hadn't. She would have misguidedly dismissed it as a children's book.

"No… I can't say that I have."

"A decisive action is the only reliable way to prevent a group from becoming out of control. I don't have the resources or the physical strength to take on a gang, and if I hadn't done something, they would inevitably have come together to kill me. It was not enough to kill their leader; it was necessary to make a statement."

"You beat Ms. Long with a broken broomstick and then forcibly inserted it into her vagina… She bled to death."

"While such an unorthodox method of execution might be disturbing enough to distract _you_," I calmly pointed out, "its message was not lost on my cellmates."

She was silent for a while, then. I waited for her to sigh, and she did not fail me. Finally, she knitted her drawn-on eyebrows together and prepared to speak. According to the Chinese, thin eyebrows have always been a woman's way of expressing her agreeable and submissive personality, today a subconscious attempt at gentle feminine desirability_. I am weak and harmless; therefore I am desirable as a mate._ I'm sure the great psychologist was unaware of just how much personal information she emitted. She was like a floodlight. "Why do you feel the need to solve problems through violence, Alessandra? I need you to help me understand, so _I_ can help you."

Now I was beginning to become annoyed. "Do you speak as though you're a simpleton because you think it will relax my guard or because you think I enjoy feeling intellectually superior to others?"

She tilted her head to one side as though she hadn't heard me properly. "I don't know what you mean."

"No, you do, but you want me to spell it out for you. You coat your words in honey and ask me child's questions, but you're intelligent enough to know that you may be direct with me—more so than with anyone else, I think. I'm not your husband; you shouldn't feel the need to tiptoe and hint and wheedle and make yourself seem attractive in order to get the things you want. Each of my four limbs is handcuffed to my chair. I'm in no position to frighten you unless you allow me to, and you have. There will be no real progress unless you correct that mistake."

I could almost hear her graduate school mantras whirling through her head. In every session, it is necessary to prevent the "power" from being in the client's hands. She would now have to either refuse to speak on the topic or draw the focus back to me by picking apart my speech and finding hidden personal demonstrations within it, such as my need to analyze others.

"You're always analyzing people," she said after collecting herself, and I privately congratulated her. "Are you afraid of unpredictability?"

"Much better," I replied with a patient smile, nodding. "I like to eliminate unknowns."

"Why?"

What a silly question. "Knowledge provides more relative safety than its lack."

"Relative safety?"

"There is no such thing as complete safety." As I said it I knew that in her later report she would call me paranoid as well as antisocial. I meet some of the criteria for membership in the DSM-IV dissocial disorder club, but I am certainly not paranoid. "Ask me a real question, Mrs. Umplett, and do it with confidence, if you please."

"All right." She seemed to find this request reasonable. "Tell me about a time when you were young and you didn't feel safe."

"I don't need a lesson in self-awareness," I said irritably. "I know very well why I am the way I am, but if you remain curious, I don't have any reservations about answering your question. My father came to Escarpa from Earth when I was 5, and then, promptly, he died, leaving my sister, my mother, and me in a foreign world. From this, you will draw the conclusion that I have internal feelings of abandonment. My mother prostituted herself and abused us, and from this, you will deduce, among other things, that I have a deeply-seated anger toward women and toward myself as a woman. My mother died of overdose and my sister and I were separated when we were turned over to foster care. Luciana was badly abused and neglected. When the law failed to punish them, I tortured and killed her entire foster family. I've been in prison for three years, and I have injured eight inmates and killed one, bringing my total murder count to five.

"Now I am here, talking to you, and I must say that while not particularly delightful, it has been quite illuminating. I feel I should give you something in return for your troubles. Shall I share my findings with you?"

She was all encouragement, the poor woman. "Gooood! That's wonderful, honey. Please tell me." Finally, she had lost her fear of me.

"I have come to understand that you, my dear therapist, are the Madonna of insecurity. You chose to pursue this profession because you thought you might find the answers to your own problems. You also enjoy the maternal feelings associated with the job—there is a sense of control, and you have always been under the control of someone else. It shows in everything you do. Your vanity, your need to be found pleasing by others, is pathetic. Do you feel useless when you aren't _needed_? How soon after your children moved out did you decide to finish your studies?"

"Eh-excuse me?"

"I imagine life-sentence convicts like me are especially appetizing for you. With nothing but a bimonthly visit from our families to look forward to, I'd be willing to wager that your face is a welcome sight for many, even if they refuse to admit it. Is this useful to you?"

A muscle was working in Mrs. Umplett's jaw. She cleared her throat and took a sip of water, leaving a red stain on the glass. "I think we should continue this another time. You're becoming agitated." The guards stepped forward and released me from the chair, their hands firmly clamped around my upper arms.

"It seems strange to put a stop to the session after coming to the story you were searching for," I remarked to the ceiling. Slowly, I let my eyes slip down over her face, which was rapidly becoming more and more strained. "You might have learned something today. Unfortunately, you're the sort of person who, once she has made up her mind, cannot fathom changing it. You fear the appearance of wavering, but you spend every moment of your life doing just that. You merely imagine that only _you_ are aware of it. Have you considered therapy, Mrs. Umplett?"

I never saw her again. Some people simply cannot bear to look inward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

_Dear Aly,_

_I miss you. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about who I'd have to kill to get in there with you, but I know I couldn't guarantee we'd be together if I went through with it, and I know you'd be really angry at me for throwing my life away. But the truth is, without you I don't feel like I have a life at all. I'd rather be in there with you than out here without you._

_Mickey and I broke up last night. We had a fight. He said something about you and I broke a plate over his head. I don't think he'll file any assault charges—you know how he is—but I'm still kind of regretting what I did. It was a nice plate, and I don't like to break things in your house. I've been keeping it clean and tidy for you, just the way you like it, except that Mephistopheles is still puking on the rug all the time. I think he misses you as much as I do._

_I want to know how you're doing. Are you talking to the lawyer about how you can get eligible for parole? Just play nice, do what those pricks tell you to do, and stay out of trouble. I'm coming to see you next week, so I'll tell you everything else then. I know they read your mail._

_Love,_

_Luciana _

I folded the letter for the third time in two minutes and creased it smoothly, holding it against my face. If I tried, I could almost smell my sister's hand lotion. Vanilla Sugar. It was a welcome addition to the stink of three hundred women with poor hygiene. The air in solitary never seems to circulate properly.

I had been given the luxury of a blue crayon and one sheet of paper. With my thumbnail, I shaved the crayon to a fine point and began to write my reply.

_Dear Luciana,_

_It's safe to assume that I'll never go before a parole board; I killed a woman two days ago, and they really don't approve of that sort of thing. It will be best for both of us if you let the notion go._

I certainly had. It had been a choice between living in a prison cell and dying in one. Not a difficult decision.

_I'm happy to hear that you've finally gotten rid of that horrible boyfriend, although I am sorry it had to happen the way it did. As hypocritical of me as it may be to say this, I do wish you would be more careful. Learn from my actions; discretion is more rewarding than passion. Do what you must, but weigh the value of every course against another. Never allow your heart to rule your mind._

I sighed, adding, _Try changing Mephistopheles' food—something lighter, less rich. Allow him plenty of exercise outside. That should help. _

_Ever,_

_Alessandra_

I sealed the envelope and knew my reply would be dissatisfying to her. Luciana loved me so much that it blinded her. I had been in prison for three years, and still she wrote as though I had only just arrived. It wasn't real to her, even after all this time, and I had begun to wonder if it ever would be. A horrible image wafted into my mind of her ten years older and still waiting, still keeping my house clean, still feeding my pets. It was awful. That was not the sort of life I wanted for her. We had survived so much already. It couldn't have been for nothing, for _this_.

I glanced down and realized with some surprise that my nails were gouging red half-moons into my palms. The crayon lay broken in my left hand, and I crushed it resolutely against the concrete floor. In part, it was because once begun, I never like to leave an action unfinished. But if I was truly honest with myself, it was because I knew that I was in danger of writing more, a post-script of self-pity and loneliness, and that would only have inflamed my sister's sense of duty and loyalty to me. She might have done something foolish and, in the end, futile.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

As I had explained to Luciana, a parole board is not impressed when one prisoner kills another, and I sympathize. It certainly makes "reformation of character" rather difficult to swallow. To the guards, however, it simply means one less mouth to feed, one less cot to fill, and therefore, more tax credits in the treasury. This may not be true for all prisons; I had only occupied this one, and my experience was limited to the underground caverns of Goliath's Global Secure Center, Wing D—otherwise known as Death Alley.

And so it came as little surprise to me when the door opened some time later and I was released back into the common area, replaced by a badly beaten guard-killer who hadn't yet learned the golden rule of Death Alley:

It's not what you do; it's who you do it to.

What did surprise me was that rather than returning me to the cell I shared with Maddie the Hatter with a mild warning not to kill any more people, the guards, whose practiced hands gripped my arms and their guns simultaneously, were leading me _past_ it.

"I'd like to see what happens to the next person brave enough to call you 'Angelface' again!" Maddie called out, pressing her hands against our bullet- and laser-proof polymer cell to catch a glance of me. "Good for you, Alessandra."

"Oh Madeline," I said over my shoulder. "You're embarrassing me." I liked Maddie the Hatter. She was 74 years old, tougher than old shoe leather, and the most honest person in Wing D. She had murdered her husband, embalmed and mummified him herself, dressed him in his best suit, and continued to have breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and supper with him for six months before she was caught. Most Death Alley cons would kill you in your sleep as soon as look at you, but Maddie really only missed her husband.

"Roger was a wonderful man," she once told me. "Quiet, kind, and so handsome. But then he had the stroke, and his personality changed. He started punching me around and drinking…. I just wanted my Roger back. I wanted things to be the way they were."

I understood her desperation all too well. She was sentenced to death—fortunately delayed by a never-ending series of appeals—because her crime was seen as more heinous than "ordinary" killing. I have always been struck by the fact that so many people consider death to be more sacred than life. To me, a crime against a corpse is no different than a crime against a doll, and dressing a doll in its Sunday best and talking china patterns with it over tea and biscuits is hardly a crime.

The guards ushered me into the lift, and I realized with a small start that today must be visitation day. It was difficult to measure time in solitary confinement. It seemed strange, however, that I should be taken straight to the visitor cubicle from the isolation cell. In fact, something felt very wrong. The hands gripping my arms were wet with perspiration, but these men were veterans of the force, and they knew they had nothing to fear from me. Yet they _were_ afraid. I could see it in their eyes, in the flare of their nostrils. I silently admonished myself for being so distracted by my thoughts. I had missed information, and now I would be unprepared for whatever waited for me in the room.

Though the lights had been dimmed almost to blackness, I knew the moment I entered that my sister was not there. The guards cuffed me to the chair once more, but this time they left the room and shut the door behind them. I caught a scent of something musky, a masculine cologne of some sort, and then a figure moved in the darkness.

"Alessandra Batista, age 25, birthdate October 30, hair black, eyes grey, 5 feet 10 inches tall, 130 lbs., identification number 24085682212." His voice was high, for a man's, almost effeminate.

I breathed evenly and slowly, feeling myself grow calmer and more collected. What did I know of this man so far? He used a sandalwood and…yes, frankincense essential oil mixture as a cologne. When he moved in the shadows, his steps were just slightly heavy on the right, probably from an old injury or perhaps a new, minor one. He was just over 6 feet tall, very thin, and a nonsmoker who lived either alone or with other nonsmokers. The flash of a watch face caught what little light there was. He was left-handed. No flashes of light from the left hand as he moved—he was either single or simply didn't wear his ring.

"You've taken my sister's place," I said. "Obviously, you want something from me, and you're going to use her as leverage. Hmm. You're going to have me released, aren't you? To do something for you."

"What makes you think that?"

"You won't let me see your face," I said, smiling. "So, either you don't want me to know when you're lying, or you don't want me to know who to look for when I'm free. Perhaps both? Yes, I thought so. But you are laboring under the illusion that I need to see your eyes in order to discern lies from the truth, and that I need to know what you look like in order to find you. You have my records, so you know I don't. So why don't you take your business elsewhere before you get into something you won't have the chance to regret?"

The man began to laugh, first a chuckle, and then loudly, with a definite note of triumph. After a few moments, his laughter gave way to a strained wheezing, and he fumbled with an inhaler. An asthmatic. That was interesting. "I knew you were the right person for the job, Alessandra," he gasped. "I didn't know how right until now. You aren't afraid of me, and that's good, because I _do_ have Luciana, and I didn't want to have to hurt her. She is so lovely, after all. Lovely and sad, wasting away to nothing without her older sister to care for her. She has no one, now, and soon she'll have nothing."

"Unless I…?"

"There's someone I'd like you to speak to. I have some questions for him, and I'd like you to bring him to me. He is well-protected, so this will be dangerous. But if you die in the attempt, Luciana will be taken care of financially for the rest of her life—_if_ your body is returned to me. If you succeed, then both of you will enjoy total and complete freedom with permanent immunity from the laws of this quadrant. You'll be treated as…ambassadors. All I require from you is that you try."

I studied his silhouette and noticed the way he frequently shook his hair out of his eyes. He sounded quite young, but she understood on an almost animal level that this was not a man who could be intimidated. As such, he was not to be underestimated. He deserved a certain proper respect.

"Mr…?"

"Call me Mr. X, for now, Alessandra."

"Yes, Mr. X, you are wise not to trust me. May I ask who it is I'm supposed to find?"

"His name is Richard Riddick. He is the newly-appointed Lord of the Necromongers."

My insides did a little jump. I had heard of him, snuck his psychological files from the back room of the library. I had had never imagined I might get an opportunity to study him face-to-face.

"Mr. X, I don't think you'll find he's with the Necromongers any longer. There have been no reports of any Necromonger presence at all, anywhere in the known 'verse. I've read his profile. He would never have stayed with them for long. He needs to be free."

"Precisely my point, darling. I want to know what has happened to the Necromongers. He is the only man who can tell us. Do whatever it takes to make him do that, and things will go well for your sister no matter what the outcome is. In the meantime, I'll take care of her."

"If you ever think of harming her in any way, remember the photos in my file. Think of those, and of the past's tendency to repeat itself."

"You'll need a new name, a code."

"What do you suggest?"

"I've given it a lot of thought. Welcome to the Family, Angelface."


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

Mafia. I should have known. Only a syndicate boss or a government fatcat would have had the muscle to pull a quadruple—ah, no, I beg your pardon, _quintuple_-murderer out of a place like this. I thought it highly unlikely that Mr. X was a major figure, however; he was probably an underboss or a _consigliore_ sent to do the bidding of his master. They weren't after the bounty on Riddick's head. Had that been the case, they would simply have asked me to kill him, and I would have refused, not out of respect or sentiment for Riddick as a fellow convict—of all the absurd ideas—but because frankly, I don't think I would have succeeded. No, it was my reputation as an analyst that drew them here. Darling Maya Umplett's report. They knew I could squeeze water from a stone given half a chance.

"I'll need a partner. Someone to watch my back."

"I have many good people—"

I lifted a hand and shook my head. "I don't want your people, Mr. X. I want someone I know I can trust. I want Madeline Rosier."

"She is old."

"You'll get her out, as well, please, and when this is over, you'll give her an equal share in what you've promised me," I said firmly.

Mr. X made a small noise through his nose. I heard the crackle of plastic as he unwrapped a piece of gum or candy and popped it into his mouth. Menthol. It was a cough drop. He sucked it for a few moments, then smirked. "Very well. It's done. Is there anything else?"

"I'd like a small ship."

"And a pilot to fly it? A gunner?"

"Thank you, but no. I can handle both."

--

Maddie and I mysteriously came up for parole two days later, and a short time after that, we were being given back the clothes we had been wearing when we were arrested, along with a great deal more money than either of us had gone in with. Mr. X had even purchased a parole officer who always seemed too busy to call.

"Glory…" Maddie breathed, blinking rapidly in the harsh sunlight as we climbed onto the transport to the airfield. She glanced over at me and smirked. "You gonna hunt a serial killer in that sundress?"

"I did the Warners on my way home from church," I answered snidely, echoing her slangy way of speaking.

Maddie shook her head, pursing her lips. "It takes all kinds."

"Fortunately for you."

"That's right. I'd still be in there tripping over my tits if it wasn't for you."

"You are the most vulgar old woman I have ever met," I laughed.

"I've earned it," she said crabbily. "I'm older than dirt, I'm allowed. Besides, it's what you like. You're so damned _proper_, you need some vulgarity in your life. That's why you brought me."

"That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." I glanced sidelong at her. "But we both know why you're so vulgar, and we know why I brought you along—besides the fact that I like you, of course."

She tittered softly and her hunched little frame shook with even that slight motion. "You can't be serious. I gave up that life when I married Roger. I'm 74 years old, honey. I can't shoot no more."

"You were a sniper with the Special 21 Division, Maddie. You were a sniper for 40 _years_. Who else lasted that long? Besides, you sneaky bitch, any 74-year-old Furyan is stronger, faster, and smarter than a 40-year-old human."

Maddie's bony elbow slipped from her knee and she grabbed my arm for support out of shock, not frailty. "Wha—How the _fuck_ did you know that?" she sputtered.

"I didn't. Now I do."

She looked scandalized.

"I suspected _something_ for a long time," I admitted. "You haven't got the eyes I read about in Riddick's file, but you are far too quick on your feet to be an ordinary woman. You can stop hunching, now."

Reluctantly, Maddie sat up straight and stopped her rheumy shaking. "You are so damned manipulative, do you know that?"

"I do know. So does the mob." I frowned. "I need to find out which Family has my sister. I don't trust them, Maddie."

"Well, yeah, they're the fucking _mob_," she said. "You'd have to be an idiot to trust them. But we're out now, aren't we? We'll figure something out, honey. If anyone can, it's you."

I had a number for a paging device. When I found information pertinent to my investigation, I was to call the number, after which Mr. X or one of his men would return my call from an untraceable comm. They were taking no chances with me. I had the number, a vague description of Mr. X himself, and some idea as to the nature of his Family. Large, powerful, and they definitely knew something about Riddick and the Necromongers that no one else did. It wasn't much to go on, but I fully intended to have more before long.

"So where are we going first?" Maddie asked quietly when we reached the airfield.

"Well," I said, "first we're going to get into _that_." I pointed to the south, where a TK-322 Piranha sat silently among the other fighters.

Maddie let out an appreciative expletive and whistled. "They really want this guy! …Poor thing," she added.

"We'll see." A guard was already waiting for us near the ship. Wordlessly, he slipped me a small package and walked away. I opened the package and a bracelet fell into my hands, along with an unsigned note.

Maddie was looking at me questioningly, and I held the bracelet up so she could see it. "Military codes for every major airfield in the quadrant. We can land wherever we want with these. They change by the hour, and the new codes are downloaded into the bracelet, apparently. Mr. X has powerful friends in government. You know, Maddie, if it wasn't so paranoid, I'd say the Family _is_ the government."

"Don't be so sure it's paranoia, Angelface," Maddie said darkly. "When you get to be my age, there won't be much that can still surprise you."

I wondered about that. But if it had been a government agency that wanted Riddick, I suspected they would have had access to too many resources to need to resort to recruiting cons.

The Piranha was an impressive ship. The cockpit had been coded to open only after I had submitted my thumbprint for analysis, which meant that no one would ever be able to steal it from me without my being there, but also that my movements would certainly be tracked. I paused for a moment of silent commendation of Mr. X's cleverness. Once Maddie and I had climbed in and I had closed the door behind us, I looked around and smiled. The Piranha was built to be light and speedy, but dangerous. There was seating for six, two of which were for gunners who fired the auxiliary canon towers. In the front was the pilot's station, and that was where I sat after inspecting the rest of the ship.

"Maddie, sit in the starboard gunner's chair," I called back, powering up the ship and checking the gauges. "Rig both guns for one user. You know what to do."

"Yeah, _I_ do, but how do _you_ know a damn thing about birds?"

"Two counts of Grand Larceny, committed when I was a teenager. They didn't know it was me until I was indicted for the murders."

"You never mentioned that."

I shrugged. "It seemed sort of trivial." The engines were humming to life, a deep, sonorous, pleasantly familiar sound that I had not heard in some time. The sound of freedom.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

"So why…did you steal two, uh….two ships…back then?" Maddie asked me as we left orbit some minutes later, drowsy with the chemical cocktail that was steadily pumping itself through her veins.

"Mmm…I stole two…because I crashed the first one."

"Oh yeah…makes sense…."

I have always hated cryo-sleep. I've never liked the idea of not knowing exactly where I'll be when I wake. Uncertainty rarely enters into my life, and as a result I am quite unaccustomed to and uncomfortable with it. But more than that, it is because the higher mind becomes dormant in cryo-sleep, leaving only the primitive animal side. I had made a point of controlling my animal side through a strict application of the intellect for several years then, and the sudden stripping of that intellect brought on a whole host of less-than-pleasant sensations.

As always, images slipped in and out of focus, visions of my life and its course. My hands on my father's face, the corners of his kind, grey eyes crinkled with laughter. My hands clutching the warm, sticky fabric of his shirt as he lay in the street. My hands pushing Luciana under the bed while our mother's shadow grew shorter in the hallway. My hands holding a gun while four adults cuffed themselves to the radiator. My hands striking a match and dropping it into a splash of critonene. All pieces of a psychological puzzle. One plus one equals two.

I saw a pair of pupil-less blue eyes, shining like moonstones in the darkness. I drifted toward them. The sun was warm on my back, the night bathing my face in silky coolness. A pair of strong hands closed over my waist and lifted me skyward….

I jerked awake and immediately regretted it. My head was pounding. I clamped my hands over my eyes to shut out the brightness of the Piranha's cabin lights and squinted through my fingers at the chronometer—it was now 3:16 p.m. on Goliath, July 31st. We had been sleeping for a mere three weeks.

"Not bad at all, little boy," I murmured groggily, patting the guageboard, but my hand froze as it passed through the holographic starchart. A small planet revolved slowly, almost ominously, where a much larger and brighter one should have been. We were in the wrong system.

"I hate cryo-sleep," I muttered. Even my irrational fears proved rational. Being constantly correct is such a burden.

"Don't you know all ships are female?" Maddie croaked from behind me. I could see her reflection massaging her lower back in the dark screen of my main canon console. "Thank God we're done with that hike. I don't like waking up a month older."

"Well, you can give yourself back a week of your life," I said, pointing to the display with one hand while I guided the Piranha through its descent with the other. "This isn't Helion Prime, Maddie."

"What? Then where the hell are we?"

"Furya, and we've already passed into its atmosphere. We're just over the Kespartanes, so I'm going to have to open the shutters so I can keep from killing us. You may want to cover your eyes." As I said it, the outer shields slid slowly back from the cockpit and a strange light flooded the cabin. I understood then why the planet was so widely thought to be cursed. There was a distinctly inhospitable quality to the place, particularly in the active volcanoes I was quickly steering away from. Because I had made Riddick a hobby in prison, Furya and its geography were familiar to me. I had never expected to see it with my own eyes, however. Its orbit was unpredictable; it was nearly impossible to find.

Maddie sat back heavily in her seat. Her hands gripped her knobbly knees very tightly. "But how?" she kept whispering. "How?"

I understood her. Returning to Furya must have been very painful to her. It was a place of death, where an entire generation of the race had been eradicated. Exterminated. Maddie had been away for 40 years, and so she had not been there when it happened. Her memories of Furya were very different from the ghost world that met her now. I, too, felt a very palpable sense of loss.

Landing with the Piranha was simple. We touched down on a low plateau, and I unbuckled my harness and raked my hands through my hair, taking in our surroundings. Twisted trees, over-thin in their nudity, stuck out from the ground like crude crosses. The shadows of the mountain range Kespartanes threw the valley below us into perpetual twilight. There was little evidence of life anywhere. I wondered if it had always been like this, or if the world had died with its people. After a moment, I chastised myself for such ridiculous mystical thinking.

"Alessandra…" came Maddie's anguished voice. "You know I trust you. But please tell me why we're here."

I stood up and smoothed out the folds of my sleek red dress, wishing I had worn something a bit more practical to my sister's parricide. It looked as though we might be doing some climbing. My hand drifted toward my head, which was still aching, but stopped halfway. I felt strange, feverish. How odd…. "I don't know what brought us here. Perhaps Mr. X accessed the ship's computer while we were asleep. If that is the case, he must believe that Riddick is here. If it is not…" I smiled grimly. "Furya is not such a bad place to start looking."

But in a deep, unnamable place, I knew Riddick was near. I had never had such feelings before; I have always relied strictly on observable facts for my conclusions. But I knew, just as I knew I could feel Riddick's presence, that I could trust this feeling. It was merely a…different sort of observation. My world was spinning around me. My intellect told me to sit down and wait for the sensations to ease, but this new intuitive side urged me desperately on. I shook my head, trying to clear it, but it only made the pain worse.

"Maddie, we should go now. I've set the ship to autopilot; it will come to us if I summon it with this." I indicated the ignition chip, which I had clipped to a pendant that hung from my neck, and held out my hand. "We'll head north."

"Why north?" Maddie asked, but she allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

"Into the night," I said absently, remembering a dream.

---

The air was thin even at our low altitude, and I understood then why Furyans operated at such high efficiency on more earth-like planets. The craggy slopes over which Maddie and I carefully picked our way were of a jagged red stone covered in a fine blanket of earth and ash. I marveled, as I had many times while incarcerated, at the fact that she moved only a bit more slowly I did, and was hardly winded by the effort. A military-issue rifle was strapped across her narrow back; we had discovered a small arsenal in a compartment inside the Piranha, courtesy, no doubt, of Mr. X and company. Despite growing up on the streets of a very bad neighborhood, I had never actually fired a gun, but like so many children of the ghetto, I had acquired a thorough education in the use of the blade.

Along with a number of hunting knives and daggers, Mr. X had whimsically provided a long, thin sword reminiscent of an old earth weapon, the katana—but with some subtle differences, which I did not have time to explore. Although I was intrigued by the sword, I had decided to leave it behind for the present, until I could practice with it. I brought a selection of smaller blades instead.

The pain in my head was reaching an intolerable level, now. As we climbed toward the summit of a large hill, my stomach lurched. My vision was slowly becoming blurry. I tried to remember my plan for Riddick's capture—he was so close—but the throbbing drowned out all thought.

"S-stop," I gasped, holding up a hand. I doubled over and vomited.

Maddie was at my side in an instant, rescuing my hair from certain defilement. "Christ, Angel, what's wrong?"

I could only continue to empty my stomach in reply. I couldn't feel my hands, my feet, or anything in between. I couldn't see.

"Alessandra, you can't afford to be dehydrated in a place like this. I want you to try to sip this water—Fuck, you're burning up! You've got a bad fever. Why the fuck didn't you tell me you weren't feeling well before? What the hell were you thinking, going out like this? Alessa! Stay with me, Angelface…."

I felt the strangely downy soil of Furya against my face. I breathed its smoky scent. I thought, _Ah, I've been dreaming the whole ti…_.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Shit, Angel…"

Alessandra's unconscious form slumped against the ground—mercifully far enough from what she might have politely called "her stomach's evicted contents." Her long, dark hair pooled around her like some kind of black halo. With her perfect body and otherworldly beauty, she always reminded me of a fallen angel. That was why I had chosen to continue to call her by her prison taunt, albeit with better intentions. She was my corrupted angel, a perfect being tainted by the darkness of her mind. I understood her, but I knew I would never be her equal in anything, despite what she might say. Frankly, I didn't think I ever wanted to be.

I lifted Alessandra over my shoulders and was about to press the chip on her necklace when I suddenly heard a low roaring sound from above. Fuckin' mercs, no doubt. I dove on top of her in the shelter of a stand of trees and brush overlooking a low cliff. A decent-sized ship came down overhead and swept low over us, scanning something below the cliff. I rolled off of my still-unconscious Angel and crawled on elbows to the edge of the cliffside, getting my plasma rifle ready.

"Sorry, honey, you're not missing much. This part is my show, anyway," I whispered.

Then I saw the graves. There were thousands…no…tens of thousands…of baby boys laying there under the dirt. Helpless, never having known love, never having known sorrow or joy or anything at all but fear and pain and then darkness. I was looking over a valley pockmarked with graves. I wondered…had I had any grandchildren slaughtered by those motherfuckers? My daughter was dead, dead before I even knew she had gotten married while I was away on my long tour of duty. I didn't even know his name, because he was dead, too.

My grip tightened on the stock of my rifle. I wanted to use it on someone. Anyone. I wanted to fucking kill. Fuck that con, Riddick. I wanted the Necromongers, and I wanted them _now_.

I felt Angel stir beside me, and it broke my trance. "Your training, Madeline…" was she said before lapsing back into unconsciousness. Instantly, I berated myself—briefly—for letting myself get all shook up and distracted. _Angelface, you are damn good_. I had no idea what was wrong with her right now, but whatever it was, she was obviously fighting it somewhere inside. I didn't know jack shit about medicine, besides treating gunshot wounds or broken bones.

The ship pivoted and swung back toward us, and as its shadow fell over us, another shadow leapt through the air and landed right in front of me, on all fours, like a hunting cat. In one swift movement, he knocked the gun from my hands and clamped his free hand over my mouth.

"Don't move. Don't talk," he said quickly. His voice was a low rumble, like thunder.

I knew better than to fight him while a merc ship was flying around overhead, and seriously doubted I could've done anything to him, anyway. He was almost supernaturally strong.

Alpha Furyan strong? Could it be him?

Alessandra stirred again, and this time for good, it seemed. She opened her eyes, took in the situation, and immediately closed them again. _That's right, let him think you're still out_.

The ship began to put some distance between us and it. Once it had moved far enough away, the Furyan—oh, there was no mistaking it, now—let go of me, but kept my rifle for himself. He was a tall, extremely well-muscled man with a shaven head black goggles over his eyes. I'd seen his picture, and I knew who he was.

"Hello, Riddick."

"Are you mercs?" he demanded quietly—but there was no mistaking the note of danger in his tone.

"Well, we're not getting _paid_ if that's what you mean. We did come to talk to you." As an afterthought, I pulled the collar of my shirt down, exposing a portion of my chest. A light blue handprint glowed gently there, as it had for several months, now. "We were hoping you'd come with us."

If Riddick was surprised, he didn't show it. Maybe Angelface would have been able to read some tiny sign, but I sure as hell couldn't.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Madeline Rosier, a Furyan."

For some reason, this seemed to have had a profound affect on him. It was kind of hard to tell, because of the goggles, but I'm willing to bet his eyes were wide. He didn't say anything for several seconds, but then he began to chuckle in a derisive sort of way.

"It figures," he said with a smirk. "So you finally decided to come home…_Grandma_."


	6. Chapter 6

**Six**

**(Please excuse my absence. I've been battling Lyme disease and Ehrlichiosis since around May. I'm back in action with a new laptop so I can lie in bed and write for you! Please enjoy.)**

While Maddie and Riddick talked, I remained motionless, my head still pulsing painfully. A fine sweat coated my body, chilling me. If Maddie's common racial heritage wasn't enough to convince him to get on our ship, then I would have no choice but to catch him by surprise with my own singular brand of "persuasion." And I knew I did not have the strength to do it. I was so cold…

But what came out of Riddick's mouth just then introduced an entirely new set of rules to the game. I understood him. He was not making a comment on Maddie's age. She was—or at least, he thought she was—his grandmother. He knew her name. Through my eyelashes I could see a muscle going slightly in his jaw. Once. Twice. It was enough. Maddie, too, was clearly disturbed. She stared at him as though she could not see him properly.

"You know who I am?" she whispered.

Very deliberately, Riddick lowered Maddie's rifle and propped it up against a stone. He had put it down, but it was not out of his reach, I noted. I could hardly blame him.

"My mother was Naomi Riddick. She used to be Naomi Rosier," he said in his deep, slow voice. I noticed that his teeth behind his full lips were very white. He took care of himself, for a man constantly on the run. Only his hands were black with soot and dirt. "She wrote about you. Not good things. I never did get to talk to her, myself, though, so who knows how it really was?"

Maddie stood very still, her arms rigid by her sides. She looked as though she had just been slapped, and I was nearly seized by a sudden urge to comfort her. Riddick showed no such inclination, however. Instead, he picked the rifle back up and slung it over his shoulder. "I take it you didn't come here to bring up family business. So if you've got somethin' else to say, we'd better get moving before they find us. Where's your ship?"

Maddie grew still paler. She wiped her eyes and glanced at me. I shut my eyes the rest of the way and willed myself to stop shivering, knowing Riddick's gaze would follow hers.

"What's wrong with her?" I heard him ask in what struck me as an awfully casual tone for someone looking at an apparently unconscious woman in a sundress lying near a pool of vomit.

"I—I don't know," Maddie stammered. "She's sick. She's my…my friend. We need to get her to the ship."

I felt fingers brush my neck and fought off the desire to shiver. "She has an ignition chip. Must be a nice ride. What's her name?"

"The sh-ship or the girl?" I asked, opening my eyes and letting myself resume shivering. His face was very close to mine, and I got the distinct impression that he was not merely looking at me, but smelling me, too. His hands moved to his goggles and he raised them away from his eyes. _Like moonstones in the darkness_… I tried to shake my head, but only succeeded in making the rest of the world spin. What was _wrong_ with me? His nostrils flared briefly; he reminded me for one hysterical moment of a prize racehorse—all smooth muscle and coiled grace.

"The ship," Riddick answered, smirking. His canines glinted in the light. "Press that chip, 'cause we don't have time for anymore introductions. For now you're just The Girl. Can you walk?"

"Fuck no, she can't!" Maddie interjected while my fingers found the ignition chip. "Look at her!"

"Nice to see the shock of f-finding your long-lost grandson's worn off, Maddie," I muttered, shaking. "I like you better when you're swearing and yelling."

The old woman gave me a lopsided smile that did not entirely mask her concern. "Yeah, well I'll like you better when someone gives you a breathmint, Angelface."

"Me too, come to think of it," I admitted.

The wind was driven out of me and I nearly vomited again as Riddick scooped me from the ground and flung me over his powerful shoulder. The ship must have arrived, which struck me as odd, because I never heard it. My senses were obviously becoming less and less reliable, which disturbed—no, terrified me. Where would it stop? What was the cause? These were the things I needed to know in order to control the damage. My life was about control. That was the fine line between my body and my corpse.

I felt Riddick's hand close over my wrist and then the warm metal of the ship was briefly pressed against my hand. There was a low hiss, and the light changed. We were in the cockpit.

"Ugh," I said. My eyelids fluttered. If I could just make the spinning stop. Focus on something else… Physics. Yes…there was a book I had read as a girl. An old book. What did it say? _We have inquired into the nature of the vacuum and its zero-point energy, we have come across a diversity of mutually incompatible theories that all account for the Casimir effect_… "Th-this is my ship!" I heard myself shout wildly.

"Not right now it isn't! I'm captain now, and I say you're delirious with fever and you should shut up and let me save our asses." Riddick's warm, hard shoulder went out from under me and I felt myself pressed into a chair. "Take care of the Girl, Maddie. Make sure she doesn't puke all over everything. Fuckin' junkies…."

I felt Maddie's cool hand against my forehead, and then she was buckling me into a flight harness and a cryo-sleeve. "She's not on drugs, Riddick!"

"No shit, not anymore. Smells more like withdrawal to me. Get to your canons, we're moving!"

Withdrawal? The word swam through my head several times before I understood his accusation. I had never taken drugs…not even as a young teenager on the street. I was ill, I…

The rough shaking and rumbling of the battle I was not to be part of grew softer.

I felt my already loose consciousness slide away like a sheet from a table as I fell deeply into a dream.

_I am standing naked in a ruined city below two pale moons, and all around me is the stench of death. Not simply the deaths of human beings, or even animals, but bacteria, fungi, everything in the city that had once been alive. Except for me. I am a child, clutching my head with tiny, star-shaped hands against my own screams. The eyes of the nearest corpse bore into mine. They say… _

**YOU DID THIS**

When I woke, my mind did not wake with me. I was still an animal, and I screamed and tore at my harness in rage and terror.

"Alessandra! Angel, stop! Riddick, get your ass back here _now_! Angel, it's going to be okay, you just had a bad dream."

"You know how to drive, old lady?"

"Fuck you, I may be your granny, but I can steer us into the shipping lane. Just do something before she hurts herself!"

Suddenly a pair of bright orbs stared directly into mine. I looked deeply into them and saw a fellow predator. I became docile. My mind returned to me. Riddick was holding me down by my shoulders. I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm all right. I need…" What did I need?

Riddick didn't release his grip. "What have you been taking, _Angelface_? You and your friend have got convict written all over you."

"Nothing," I said grimly. "The slam we were in required blood tests to check for drugs on regular intervals. If you turned up positive, you were taken out and shot. I was just sick. I feel much better, now."

Over Riddick's shoulder, I saw Maddie's eyes fall.

He shook me once, firmly, and my attention was back on his peculiar eyes. "You feel better because I found a detox kit in the head. You've been getting a shot every half hour for the past six hours."

"So I was drugged," I said slowly. "I think I know by whom. What I don't know is why."

Riddick leaned in close to my ear, until his lips nearly touched them, and spoke softly. "You mean Mr. X? Yeah, he called six hours ago. We talked for a long time. I think he might be a fag."

I blinked, but that was the only part of the spasm of fear and anger I felt inside that I allowed to show. So Mr. X had been drugging me. For how long, and for what purpose? "He told you where to find the kit."

"Looks like you cons got conned. We have a new destination."

"Where is that? And why are you cooperating?"

"That's between me and Mr. X, Angelface. Mmmm, they must have loved you back in the slam. Maddie told me about the broom-fucking incident. Sexy."

I ignored him. Mr. X had known that I would be in a state of horrible withdrawal soon after waking from cryosleep. That meant that the drugs must have been administered to me in prison, without my knowledge, for a fairly respectable amount of time. But I had never felt anything less than perfectly cognizant and clear-minded. Now that I was off the drugs, I would surely discover their purpose. And there was something else…

If Mr. X knew that I would be incapacitated, he knew that I would never have been able to catch Riddick. Yet somehow the ship piloted itself to Furya—Mr. X again, I was sure. He surely knew that Maddie was Riddick's grandmother, but that alone would hardly have been enough to convince him to come with us into what was clearly a sell-out. But there happened to be mercs….and we had the best small star-jumper in the system. So Mr. X had sent the mercs to Furya, too. The entire thing, expertly organized and executed. And now it seemed that it was not so much that he had wanted us to find Riddick, but rather that he wanted Riddick to find _us_. They had worked out a deal together, and now we were hurtling into the bright sea of space.


	7. Chapter 7

**Seven**

**(Hello, everyone. I won't be waiting for months to update this, anymore! Things are squared away, one surgery later, and I am back in the game! Thank you for sticking with Alessandra for all this time.)**

The first order of business was to verify the details of Riddick's story. The con himself ignored me as I approached the comm. station, intent on his star chart calculations and completely assured of his power over all of us, and rightly so. For now. Maddie, dressed in new clothes more suitable for her abilities, sat at her station and picked nervously at an errant cuticle. I contacted Mr. X's dummy line and received an incoming transmission minutes later from an unknown origin.

"Is it morning where you are?" Silk and honey rolled from his tongue to mingle with his sarcasm. His face was in shadow, but I knew he was smiling.

"In a poetic sort of way, yes," I replied. "I experienced some complications, as you know. I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what you really want me to do?"

"All I want you to do, Alessandra, is to keep being you. I can offer advice to make this an easy and relatively painless journey, if you like. First: you'll find some more appropriate clothing in the rear storage area. I picked it out personally. I'd like to see you in it at our next meeting. Secondly, sleep as little as you can. You can imagine how uncomfortable it would be to wake and find yourself changed beyond recognition. No, far better to watch the gradual progression yourself. Don't be concerned about your mental faculties; Lord Riddick knows what to do. Do as he says."

I feigned an eye roll in order to steal a glance at Riddick and saw his lip curl for a moment at the edge of my field of vision. There was bitterness there. That was a good sign. It was easy to mold bitterness into murder, and I began to toy with the idea of using Riddick as a tool. At any rate, I had everything I needed for the present. "As you wish," I quietly told Mr. X as I reached for the comm. cutoff. "Good day."

A flash of light on teeth as Mr. X smirked wolfishly, and then he was gone. Ah, well, not _gone_. Not truly. I knew he was still watching us like a spider, patiently spinning his web out into the cold depths of space to make a shroud for us. But I had no intention of wearing it. I was a spider, too, and I knew how to walk on threads.

My new clothing turned out to be a bizarre mixture of Mr. X's fanciful fashion tastes and…actual practicality. Cargo pants and a sleeveless shirt in olive drab and combat boots hung from a rung in the closet marked for me. There was tough leather armor for the forearms and straps for each thigh, upper arm, and both boots for knives. To cover it all, Mr. X had included a long, surprisingly well-tailored jacket. It took a few moments to get into these new clothes, but I felt much more secure when I hung the ridiculous sundress in their stead in the closet.

Despite the unsettling nature of the day's events, once I had absorbed this new information, I found myself once again in my comfort zone—the realm of analysis. As I returned to my seat and watched Riddick plot our course, I mulled over each fact carefully. In the matter of dispatching Mr. X, the course was both simple and, unfortunately, impossible without more resources. In order to find the man, I merely needed to follow his proverbial web strands back to their source—but I didn't possess the technical knowledge to isolate his signal. In any case, that was immaterial if he had gotten to Riddick. I needed something valuable to bring to the table. I had to compete with Mr. X, and in order to do that, I needed to divine the nature of his offer. The most obvious answer was freedom, a release from the bounty that hampered his movements. A clean slate. That was, after all, what he had offered _me_. He was also using my sister as leverage, of course, but I doubted that Riddick had any such attachments.

The thought sparked a second idea so suddenly that I blinked. His hands. _I am lying on the ground and looking at him through my lashes, noticing his white teeth and his black hands. _He was supposed to have been with the Necromongers. The Necromongers had not been heard from since. He was on Furya. He was near a field of graves. His hands were black with Furyan soil. And the bitterness, the bitterness in the twist of his mouth when Mr. X called him _Lord_. My lips formed a soft and reverent O. So he had lost someone recently, probably in connection with his time with the Necromongers, and it actually mattered to him. He could be reached.

As though he could feel my eyes on him, Riddick spun his chair slowly around to face me and leaned back. "You're thinking of trying something stupid," he said with a note of amusement in his slow, low voice. "Don't waste your energy."

Maddie looked at me questioningly. I smiled. "I was thinking about murder."

Riddick smirked. "What a coincidence."

"Mr. X offered me immunity from the law and the safety of my little sister in exchange for information about the disappearance of the Necromongers. Do you think he'll keep his end of the bargain?"

He shrugged. "Not my problem."

"Glory, Riddick, she's just trying to make conversation," Maddie said, crossing her arms and yawning. "You heard that shady bastard—she's not supposed to sleep."

"She can talk to _you_."

He was brushing us away at every turn, the infuriating stoic. Well, it was time to needle him. I moved closer to him and leaned against his chair. "Then we only have a short time to get to know each other. So. Who did you come to bury in your family's graveyard, Riddick? Did you bury…" Him, her, him, her. I considered for a moment and made my choice. "…_her_…" Yes, he definitely stiffened slightly. "…in a way befitting a warrior—upright with her weapons around her, face turned toward her enemies? Or did she die wastefully like the rest of your defenseless kin? Lying on her back in a hole, with dirt in her mouth."

I glanced at Maddie. She gave me a pained look and shook her head, her lips tight. _You're a monster_, her eyes said. Well, tell me something I don't know. But Riddick's anger would keep his love fresh in his mind, instead of buried in an untouchable place. I could not afford to let that wound stop bleeding. He wouldn't kill me for my cruelty; he needed me…just as I needed him. We both knew it. He gave me a long, appraising look.

"Be careful," he said. "I can play this game. And once you're in it, you don't get out until I say it's over."

"I like a challenge."

Maddie stood up without looking at either of us. "Where's the fucking minibar in this thing? I need a drink."

Reaching into his pants pocket, Riddick drew out a flask and tossed it to his grandmother, who immediately drank deeply without choking. She wiped her mouth with the back of her gnarled hand and exhaled contentedly. "Thanks, honey. I needed that. What is this stuff, anyway?"

"_Little Susie_. Bourbon."

"Well it tastes like jet fuel," she pronounced, then tilted her head back and drained the rest of it with relish.

"It should; Little Susie is160 proof," I said, shaking my head. "You've been sober for six years, Maddie…."

"Yeah, well…" The old woman shrugged futilely. "It's not like I had a choice."

Riddick was still watching me, his fingers locked together behind his head. I was crowding him intentionally, but he didn't seem to mind. In fact, there was a very palpable electric feeling in the heavy air between us. His body and mine were releasing pheromones; chemically, I knew, we were like lightning rods, and I considered this for a few moments. Slowly, I pulled my hair behind one shoulder and let it fall with a whisper. His nostrils flared slightly as he breathed in my scent. He had no pupils for me to examine, but his eyelids slowly sunk over those shining orbs until they were halfway closed.

_I've got you, now._

At the moment, we were enemies, but the science of the reproductive system is older and stronger than that of the sentient brain. I am a terrible, murderous creature, but I am physically beautiful and—worse yet—highly aware of it. I will pretend no false modesty. It is simple fact. Many females of many species have used this as a weapon for millennia. You may be surprised to know that I have never had occasion to do so, before, however, until just then, and so I was uncertain about how to go about it. I knew that I must not fail in an attempt to seduce Riddick, or I would never have another chance, and I also knew that in order to be successful, I would have to be very confident about what I was doing. So I resolved to study, make small advances, and observe.

"What were you in for?" His voice ground my thoughts to powder in an instant.

I turned, letting my hair brush against his elbow, and sat down in the copilot's chair beside him. My eyes flickered over his screens for the barest moment, and I saw that we were headed for the Chiel system. I'm ashamed to say I didn't know anything about that place, but it was obvious that I soon would.

I spun my chair so that I was facing Riddick. Maddie slumped in her own seat, pretending to be much drunker than she really was. That was all right. She knew the story. "I have a younger sister named Luciana," I told him honestly. "We were separated after our mother's death and her foster family treated her very badly. After several years of searching, I found her, and I went to the authorities about the abuse. I was granted custody of Luciana, but the family was not properly punished."

He never stopped looking at me; he hardly blinked. There was a patience in him that ran to his core. I couldn't be sure if I was holding his eyes or he was holding mine.

"I waited until Luciana was a legal adult. Then I went back to her old foster family and killed them all. I made them chain themselves to a radiator, confess to me every act of perversion and evil they had committed against my sister, and then I set their house on fire with them still inside it. While the house was burning, I went to each neighbor's house and told them the firemen were on the way, and not to worry, that the family had gotten out already and been escorted to a hotel. Then I watched the house collapse in on itself. The fire was louder than the screaming."

"You let yourself get caught," Riddick said, a note of curiosity in his voice. He cocked his head to the side slightly and leaned forward with his elbows on his big thighs. "Why?"

"I didn't want to make Luciana into a fugitive. I gave her my house and all of my investments so that she could live out her life peacefully. If I had run, she would have followed me."

For some reason, that seemed to hit a soft spot somewhere inside him. His lips twitched and he finally looked away. I leaned forward and lowered my voice to a murmur. "The girl you buried," I breathed, six inches from his face. "Did she try to follow you?" I realized that I really wanted to know. It wasn't part of my calculations and scheming. The answer was important to me.

The bitter look had come back to him, now, and he crossed his arms over his chest, still looking somewhere—probably somewhere inside his mind, not the Pirahna. "Yeah," he said. "She was just a kid."

"What was her name?"

That made him chuckle, a short snort that shook his head and shoulders. "I'm not really sure. I met her when she was twelve. She was pretending to be a boy. Called herself _Jack_. She wanted to be just like me. When I saw her again five years later she said her name was Kira."

I wanted to say I was sorry. Riddick didn't look like the type to appreciate an apology, however, especially not from me. Instead I said, "Luciana wants to be like me, but she never was and she never will be. Someday she'll be glad."

He looked at me again, and a silent exchange occurred between us. We didn't trust one another, we were still enemies, but we acknowledged something then that went beyond all of that. We were molded from different materials and had been struck with different hammers, but we were similar creatures. We had been tempered by the same fire.


	8. Chapter 8

**Eight**

"_Sleep as little as you can_," Mr. X had warned. But there was no practical way to follow that advice, not without more food supplies. We were weeks away from any port that might have such things available for purchase.

While Riddick and Maddie were calibrating the cryosleep stations, I wandered through the rest of the small ship. My fingers brushed over the keypad for the weapons locker, and I whimsically keyed in the code to open it.

_ACCESS DENIED._

I nodded slowly to myself, pursing my lips. So he had changed the code, with Maddie's unwilling help. I had expected as much. Her reunion with her grandson had taken a lot of the fire out of her. Fortunately, I had slipped a small blade into my brassiere earlier. The element of surprise could make turn even the smallest weapon into a lethal one.

"Angel?" Maddie called uncertainly, appearing in the doorway. "Oh, there you are. Listen, everything's ready…. Do you think you're going to be all right? I mean, Mr. X was just playing head games with you, right?"

I shook my head. "No, I think he was actually quite serious. But it doesn't matter. There's nothing else I can do." I clapped her shoulder and returned to the main cockpit, where the shadow of Riddick moved among the chairs, finishing the calibration. I walked past him slowly and examined the holo-chart. Our destination was in the Chiel system, as I said, a planet called Urialis. It would take us over six weeks to get there.

"It's ready." I could feel Riddick's deep voice in my chest. "You first, old lady."

"Sure." She glanced worriedly at me for the barest moment, then took her seat and allowed herself to be hooked into the cryo-sleep machine. Blue fluid began to fill her veins, and her eyelids fluttered. "Naomi…" she sighed. "If only…I'd been there. God…damn it."

Riddick looked at her for a long moment. Then, when she had fallen into the chill embrace of full cryosleep, he bent to whisper, "It wouldn't have made any difference."

He was right, of course. In the face of the terrible power of the Necromancers, one sniper could hardly have turned the tide of battle. The only difference would be that Maddie, too, would have been slaughtered.

Suddenly, Riddick was mere inches in front of me. Reflexively, I moved away from him until my back hit the wall, but he kept coming. He took off his goggles and tossed them onto his chair, and then we were almost nose to nose. What was he trying to do? I stared evenly back into his moonstone eyes, keenly aware of the masculine, musky scent coming off of him and the sound of his breathing. _Calm_, I told myself, slowing my heartbeat with my own breaths. _I will not be intimidated._

"Angelface," he said with a smirk, a flash of gleaming white canine tooth. "You have something I want."

A shiver rushed through my body. So…that was it, then. Well, I had gambled on this eventuality—but I was surprised that it had come so soon. Though…not unpleasantly so, I had to admit. I reached for his face and caressed his cheek. It was smooth and very warm.

Riddick caught my hand in his, bringing the inside of my wrist to his soft lips. He inhaled the scent of my skin deeply as he kissed and dragged his teeth over it, and I felt the room begin to spin. No one had ever touched me in this way, and I was unprepared for the sudden heat that rose within me. I twisted my wrist and lifted his chin with both hands so that I could kiss his throat, and he grabbed me by the shoulders and ripped my jacket off of them. Once my arms were bare and the jacket lay in a heap on the floor, he slid his hands up and down my sides, over my hips, and squeezed my bottom, hard, pressing me against the cold hull of the Pirahna. I could feel the heat of his skin through our shirts.

Riddick knelt, then, and ran his hands from my ankles to my thighs and upward, lifting my shirt and bringing his lips to my stomach. My breathing was growing distinctly ragged, but there was so much fog in my mind that the thought of maintaining control could not enter it. There was only Riddick, and my desire for him—this killer, this beast who could look into my eyes and see something like itself behind them.

He stood again, but left his hands beneath my shirt, and I felt his fingers slide under my bra and over my breasts for an instant before withdrawing to bury themselves in my hair. He pulled my face toward his, and I parted my lips for the kiss…but it did not come.

Riddick looked into my eyes and chuckled huskily. "Interesting."

I didn't trust myself to form a fully coherent sentence, and only stared at him blankly.

He released me and stood back. That was when I noticed the flash of silver he twirled between his fingers, and all of the pieces clicked into place at once. He had been patting me down, looking for the weapon. Maddie, military-trained to take quick inventory of available arms, must have noticed it was missing, and Riddick must have somehow been alerted to this. He was more observant than he seemed. And more clever. Even through my irritation, I admired him for what he had done. The logic of the situation dispelled the fog, and I felt serenity take hold of me once more.

"Well done," I said, and meant it.

"You, too," he replied. "But remember what I said. I _can_ play this game."

"Clearly." Riddick might talk in a rough, uneducated way, but it was a smokescreen. I was pleased enough to have learned this about him. It was also obvious that he did not always feel the need to resort to brute force in order to achieve his ends. He could have easily restrained me or knocked me out, or searched me while I was held helpless by cryo-sleep. I concluded that his actions had been a show of his cunning, to discourage me from working against him in the future.

_ I could have done more_, he might have said. _But I didn't._

Riddick spun my chair and placed his hands on its back, tapping his fingers twice. "Sit."

I sat. When the coolant apparatus closed over my arm, driving the hypodermic needle into my flesh, I asked him, "Why are we going to Urialis?"

He sat down in his own chair and fastened the cryo-sleeve over his arm before he answered. "To take you to see the telepaths."

"Telepaths…" I was growing very tired very quickly. "Why?"

Riddick's lips moved, but I heard no sound. It was too late. I was slipping deeper and deeper into cryo-sleep—into blackness.

_Two moons shone down on me. The taste of dust was in my mouth, for I had been sucking my fingers, and tears had dried in long tracks on my face. I heard a shuddering whistle and realized it was my breathing, which came in shallow rushes. The air was heavy with the stink of decay. I knew I had been sitting there on the ground for more than a day._

_ I struggled to remember what had happened, but I could not. The eyes of the dead all around were turned toward me, looking but not seeing. I could not get away from them. I knew in my heart that there was no place in the whole world that I could go to escape them. I knew that the whole world was dead._

_ "Mama…" I rasped, my throat painfully dry, the skin dead on my lips. "I didn't mean to do it…. I'm sorry! Please come back…."_

_ I held my knees and rocked, and she did not come. No one came._

I woke abruptly, fumbling for the release on the cryo-sleeve. My fingers found it, clawed at it, and I was free. I knew at once that I had changed while sleeping. My thinking was erratic, confused—animalistic. But I had gained something, too…. Somehow I knew exactly where we were in the vastness of space without even glancing at the holo-chart. We orbited Urialis, where hundreds of people were waiting for me. If I closed my eyes, I could see them in my mind…tall, golden-skinned beings without voices. They were calling to me even now.


	9. Chapter 9

**Nine**

"Jesus Christ on toast, if I go into cryo-sleep one more time, I'm going to wake up dead," Maddie growled, rubbing her head with her bony hands. "That's six more weeks of my life gone!"

"You can't wake up dead, Maddie," I muttered absently. The dream was bothering me. It seemed too much to hope for now that the images I was seeing were merely products of my imagination. They were too familiar. But I remembered my childhood very well, and there was nothing in it that tallied up with the horrifying scene that played out while I slept. My life had been a very difficult one, full of fear, hunger, and even death—but none of it on a planet-wide scale.

Our descent was smooth. The Piranha was a flawless ship and Riddick an excellent pilot. I sat in the copilot's chair, this time, leaning hungrily toward the approaching surface as we flew. We emerged from the clouds into a beautiful golden desert that stretched on and on as far as the eye could see. The sky was darker than sapphire and just as stunning, and as we came upon the city, I saw that much of it was made from a thick, frosty glasslike material that gleamed brightly in the sun's dusky light. It struck me then that I had never in my life truly contemplated beauty. There had been no room for it in the harsh corners of my mind. Now it stood before me in all its vast glory, and I thought of Luciana's eyes, so clear and blue like the sky above me.

_I will bring her here when this is over_, I thought. _Luciana would be at home in this place of beauty. A dusky jewel framed by a world of gold._

Something in the back of my mind was trying to stop me from giving in to such thoughts. _This is no time to be poetic_, it said, almost lazily. _You may be walking into danger_. It was not strong enough to hold me back.

"Faster," I whispered. "Please." The beings I could still see in my mind had the answers I sought. I needed to be among them.

Riddick glanced my way for a moment, then increased the throttle with a small smirk.

We touched down gently onto a raised round platform in the center of the glass city. I unbuckled my harness immediately and stood, but Riddick's hand closed over my arm.

"While we're here, I'm not letting you out of my sight. You'll go where I say to go, and you'll stay close to me."

It was not meant as a reminder of his authority, exactly. He was aware that my mental faculties were not what they had been before the detoxification. "I understand," I said gratefully. At least one of us would have his wits about him.

_Do not fear us, mikira. We are thought-kin. We will not harm you._

"Someone is speaking to me," I told Riddick. "It's one of them."

"I don't hear anything," Maddie said, a worried edge in her voice. Her hands worked at themselves, clenching and unclenching, and I knew she wished they held a rifle.

"There are no sounds. Only words. Thoughts."

Riddick became very still for a moment, and I knew then that the telepaths were speaking to him, as well. I could not see his eyes behind his goggles, but I felt them. He released my arm and let his hand drop to his side. Wordlessly, he walked to the rear of the Piranha. When he returned, it was with a pair of blades bent into the shape of jagged hooks. These he tucked away, then nodded to us. "Let's go."

The door opened with a hiss, and dark sunlight flooded in, along with the smell of hot sand and notes of bittersweet plants. The air was warm; it had a way of cradling the body like a blanket. A breeze stirred my hair, and Riddick's nostrils flared involuntarily at the scent. He breathed deeply, tilting his head slightly in my direction. How like an animal he was, I mused.

We stepped onto platform and I nearly stumbled, but both Maddie and Riddick snatched my wrists tightly. Five beings—the very golden-skinned, long-limbed beings from my vision—stood over us. Their eyes were enormous and as blue as the sky above us, and they regarded us with what could only be described as…fondness. They were like mothers gazing at a prodigal child, finally home after years of misguided wandering. Small smiles played about their thin lips, and they parted to allow us to come off the platform.

_We are so pleased that you have come here at last, mikira_. I could not tell which of them made the communication, and, obviously noting my confusion, one of them stepped forward and gently touched my brow with a warm, long-fingered hand. I felt no urge to shudder or shy away. On the contrary, I wanted to wrap my arms around this wondrous being. I knew in the depths of my mind that this creature—no, person—was benevolence in living form.

"Why do you call me that?" I asked, too stunned to think of anything more relevant to our situation.

_Know that I am touching the minds of all of you, so that you may all understand my thoughts. I am Sarona. Mikira is an idea which means, "unnamed."_

"Unnamed?" Maddie repeated skeptically. "We've all got names."

_You have a name, Madeline Rosier. And you, Richard Riddick. _Sarona let her hand drop and fixed me with a level gaze. _But the one we call mikira has no knowledge of her name. Therefore, we cannot know it._

"What the hell are you talking about? Okay, we call her 'Angelface', yeah, but she has a _name_. She's Alessandra Magdalena Batista." Maddie's hands were planted defensively on her hips. She absolutely hated all things cryptic; she was a woman who preferred simplicity and efficiency. It was why she had always liked me.

Riddick and I looked on silently. Both of us understood that it would do no good to demand answers. Obviously, the telepaths would give them to us when they saw fit, and not before. I touched Maddie's bony shoulder. "Maddie, please compose yourself. We may not understand now, but—"

She brushed my hand off and rounded on me. "Don't you fucking tell me to compose myself! I've been following you halfway across the quadrant for the last two months and I still have no idea what the fuck is going on! I've been calm, I've been patient, but now they're trying to feed us this mystic bullshit about you having no name, and I think it's about fucking time somebody lost composure around here!"

"They didn't say she didn't have a name," came Riddick's slow, deep voice. "They said she didn't know what it was." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I've been putting some things together while you've been bitching. Those drugs, _Angelface's_ weird changes, and now this place. My guess is somebody messed with her memory. Made her think she was somebody else." He turned to me. "You might have to accept the fact that whatever you thought your life was, it's just somebody's lie. Not real. Think you can do that?"

I felt suddenly very cold. Luciana. If I wasn't Alessandra Batista, what about my sister? Who was she? I received letters from her, visits…I had memorized her every feature. Every last contour of her face was perfectly preserved in my mind. No, Luciana was real. But what was she to me? Was she a pawn in the game? Was she with _them_? Or was she on my side? I couldn't bear the thought that she might be someone's tool.

"Thinkin' about your kid sister?" Riddick murmured, coming closer to me. There was an uncharacteristic note of kindness in his voice. "Well, don't. It'll just make it worse. Deal with that when it comes. Trust me."

I could not help myself. I put my arms around his waist and hugged him gently, pressing the side of my face against his chest. "You're with me, right?" I asked—pled. It was shameful, this disgusting display of vulnerability, and I hated myself for it, but I could not deny his logical explanation for all of the things that had happened. If everything I had ever known was in question, then the only people I truly had were the ones standing beside me now. Against all wise judgment, I had formed an emotional attachment. And it felt so good.

"Yeah," Riddick said at last. "Yeah, I'm with you."

"Angel…" Maddie began to speak, then stopped. We both knew that it was enough. _I'm with you too, to the end_, it meant.

I took a deep breath and released Riddick, facing Sarona. "Then it's time we found out why this is happening."

_Please follow me, and we will answer._

The telepaths did not sit; rather, they stretched their long bodies across plush couches, reminiscent of ancient Greek or Roman mealtime practices. The couches were far too long for us, but Riddick preferred to stand and so Maddie and I shared one of them. Sarona had arranged for refreshments to be brought into the room—exotic dark fruits and roasted meat, with fresh, cool water in the same glass that formed the city walls, floors, and ceilings. We all ate with relish. It had been a long time since we had tasted anything that wasn't freeze-dried.

_Mikira, Richard, Madeline_, Sarona began, nodding to each of us. _What I am going to tell you might prove difficult to understand and painful to accept. I beg your forgiveness, but it is what you were sent here to learn, and I must carry out my duty. My race, with our collective power, is tasked with the keeping of all sentient knowledge. We are the living library, you might say, of the entire populated universe. There are some of us whose minds can reach even into other universes, and in order to prevent madness, our philosophy is noninterference. However, in this case, we cannot sit idly. We cannot leave our planet. We draw our very life force from its center. But we are not powerless to act, now that you have come._

_Richard, the instant you became the leader of the Necromongers, we knew. My sire was the one who read in your mind your plan of vengeance upon the ones who caused the death of your only friend. We knew what would happen when you killed the Half-Dead Lord Marshal._

"So you know about the ship," Riddick said. "That's what this is all about, isn't it?"

_Yes. When you killed him, his life force joined with the ship. He was not truly alive, and so he could not truly die. He carried the energy of the Underverse within him. Even he did not comprehend the full meaning of what he had done to himself. You then activated the self-destruct sequence of the ship and escaped just before it destroyed itself._

"But it didn't work," he finished for her. "Instead, it just disappeared."

Sarona nodded. _Yes and no, Richard. It, like the Lord Marshal, is only Half-Dead. Therefore, it exists both within the Underverse and within our universe. Everyone aboard is dead. They could not withstand the crossover. The ship, however, or rather the spirit of the Lord-Marshal, must be destroyed in both 'verses if it is to truly die. _

"Why does it matter?" Maddie asked. "I haven't noticed any difference. Why can't we just let it drift out there?"

_The ship has become like a beacon in the darkness of the Underverse. Already the lost souls there have begun attaching themselves to it. It will serve as a means for them to come into our universe, and where once there was only one man bringing about the enslavement and deaths of billions, there will be thousands upon thousands. The rest of us could not hope to resist such a force. In time, there would be no life at all here. All will have made the pilgrimage—forced or voluntary—into the Underverse. Into death beyond death._

"So. Save the world again," Riddick said bitterly. "Worked out so well last time. Maybe you should go ask somebody else."

_We aren't asking you to do anything more than to stay by the side of the mikira. You will not need to fight. Merely allow her access to your memories, so that she can find her way through the ship. We need you to be her guide_.

I stared at her. "Why must it be me? I may be perceptive, but I can't read minds."

_What I have to tell you will make you very angry, mikira._

"Stop. Calling. Her. That," Maddie hissed, bristling.

_Very well. Angelface is a fitting label. Through the minds of the others, I can appreciate your physical beauty. In any case, I must confess to you that the crime for which you were jailed never happened. It was I who ordered your imprisonment._

I did not flinch. I merely watched her strange face and tried to feel something akin to anger or surprise, but found that I was too exhausted to manage it. Maddie, however, had no trouble at all.

"You did _WHAT_?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Ten**

_I gave the order for you to be placed in custody,_ Sarona repeated serenely, ignoring Maddie's outburst. _I am sorry that you suffered, but it would have been far worse had you been allowed to roam freely. _

A deep, throbbing pain was building above my right eye. _Calm yourself_, I told myself slowly. I could not afford to become angry here. It would only delay my comprehension of this absurd situation. Better to let Sarona explain herself and process her thoughts. Better to feel nothing. But Luciana's face shimmered into view behind my closed eyelids, and then I heard the shattering of glass and its music as the pieces rained over the floor. Maddie gasped and grabbed my hand, and I opened my eyes. She was pulling thin shards of what had once been a perfectly good goblet from my fingers and palm. The sting of it helped to draw the focus away from my sister's image.

_Luciana is as you always believed her to be, Angelface_, Sarona assured me. _She is waiting for you even now. Remember that her life hangs in the balance with ours, and depends on the success of this mission._

"Tell me what I want to know," I said through gritted teeth. Why was it so difficult to control my emotions? And my head…it was pounding. I brought my uninjured hand to my brow and massaged it.

_Controlling your thoughts and emotions will be difficult for you, now. The drugs administered to you in prison kept your mind clear and suppressed certain…talents with which you were born._

Maddie was still intent on my hand, and Riddick had removed his goggles and was staring at me as though trying to read me. It occurred to me then that Sarona addressed me, alone.

"Hey, Angelface," Riddick said, a warning note in his voice. "Get it together."

"I am," I answered, uncertain of whether I would want him to know what she had to say. He nodded once, and continued to watch me carefully. It had been his way of showing his concern. That struck a strange chord in the region just above my stomach. Did he honestly care? If that was the case, then…then…ugh, my head. Enough of this.

_Tell me everything, _I thought to Sarona. _Tell me why I've had the dreams. Why I was imprisoned. Why I have to be the one to destroy the ship_.

She bowed her head. _Very well. This will not be easy for you to take in. We would have preferred that you learn it gradually, but I suppose we are running out of time. When you were very young, you were found on a planet called Tsuramm. It was inhabited by a benevolent race of beings, and one of these took you in and cared for you as her own child. You loved each other beyond words, and she could sense that you were special. You could predict events which had not yet happened, see into the minds and hearts of others, and move objects with only your mind. Your ability to transfer some of your own life force into others saved your adoptive mother's sister from death. All of these things manifested themselves within you before you were five years old. But then, disaster. Your small family was looked upon with a mixture of awe and fear, and one day, someone acted. She waited until you were both asleep, then set your home on fire. Your adoptive mother pulled you out of the fire, and you did not wake, because of the smoke in your lungs. Not until other rescuers came. By then, your mother had died of her burns and the inhalation of the smoke. When you woke, you were gripped with such fury and agony that your mind could not contain it. In a matter of seconds…_

Every living thing on the entire planet was dead.

_Yes, Angelface. Please understand, we tried to erase the memory for your own good. But your memory of the fire was so strong that we could not undo it. We had to attach fire to a new memory, a created one which you give you gratification and explained your place in prison. We arranged to give you the drugs in order to prevent you from accessing your talents. There was no other place we could keep you on the drug than Goliath. You have been there since shortly after you were discovered, starving to death, on Tsuramm by traders. _

My mind would not allow me to touch the idea that I had wiped out an entire world. I had to push past it, for now. There was so much to be done, and I could not afford to think about such a terrible thing. "Luciana's memory was modified, too, to match the story, wasn't it? Does she have what I have?"

_It was. We knew you needed someone to give you love and support, and to keep you from becoming a monster. Luciana, however, does not have your gifts. She is not your blood-kin. But what does blood matter? You love each other as sisters, and so sisters you are._

"Where did I come from?" I asked, ignoring Riddick's and Maddie's curious gazes.

_A place called Oververse. While Underverse is a place of death available only to those of the Necromonger faith, Oververse is the birthplace of the spirit, and everyone can be said to have come from Oververse, though never physically—until you. Because you are a child of Oververse, you carry the power of creation and understanding within you, but also that of destruction and deceit, for one cannot have one without the other. What are you? Who can say? It does not even truly matter. When you were a child on Tsuramm, you were given a name. That has been forgotten, because your mother always fondly called you "angel", and you never learned your given name. You are now free to make your own name._

Angel. I felt the pain in my head ebbing slowly away as what Sarona said began to sink in. I now understood why I had been so analytical and perceptive in the past; when a man loses his sight, he begins to rely on other senses, which grow stronger. So it was with my mind. I could not deny the truth of what Sarona had told me, as much as I wanted to. It was possible, of course, that Sarona had reached into my mind and pulled out the images of the dreams, and then fabricated a story to match them—but to what end?

"Who is Mr. X, and is Luciana truly in danger?" I asked.

I had begun to get a sense of the meanings of the telepaths' facial expressions, and Sarona truly looked uncomfortable, now.

"Stop cutting us out," Maddie demanded. "I want to know what's being said."

_Very well. Mr. X is the only producer of the drug which controls your abilities and keeps you sane. But not even I know who he is, or where to find him._

"Bullshit," Maddie said, cutting the air with her hand. "You're supposed to be omnipotent, or omnipresent, or whatever—"

"Omniscient," I said gently.

"Angel, this is _not_ the time."

Angel. My adoptive mother had called me her angel. For one absurd moment, all I could think of was that I was glad I hadn't killed her. But…had I not been indirectly responsible for her death? No. No, that was wrong. Related, yes, but not responsible. We are not responsible for the actions of others. I had told Luciana that very thing many times in the past…hadn't I?

"I can find him without their help, Maddie," I said, shaking my head. "I intend to take Luciana from him if he truly does hold her, and I—I want those drugs back. Now, Sarona…what happens now?"

_Now you will slowly regain the use of your talents. The first thing to reappear is the gift of foretelling. Next will come empathy, and a degree of telepathy. Then, telekinesis. And finally, the power to destroy life utterly with only a thought._

"What the…w-what the fuck?"

"I've gotta go with the old lady on this one," Riddick rumbled. "You've got a hell of a lot of explaining to do before we put our necks on the line. I'm not going in there blind."

_If the timing is right, you should return here before your final abilities manifest themselves._ _It is a terrible risk to let you run free, but it is one we must take. A force from Oververse will cancel out those from Underverse. You can make the crossover and survive, unchanged. That is why you must go. But first, we must teach you to control your new mind._

Riddick's blades were at Sarona's throat before anyone had noticed that he had moved. He brought his face very close to hers and remained absolutely still. He said nothing, but I knew they must be communicating. To my great surprise, Sarona actually smiled. Riddick smirked and released her. I wondered what had passed between them; he the animal, she the intellectual. On some level, they had reached an understanding—that much was clear.

"Does that mean you agree to go, Riddick?" I asked him, standing up.

He moved toward me. "You've got guts. It'll get you killed someday. You've also got the only ship on the planet." He paused, leaning forward. "I could take it from you if I wanted to. Drag you to the door, put your hand on it, and take off without you."

"But you won't," I murmured confidently into his ear, "because you know you need me. An animal's most basic instinct is survival. And you want to live, Richard Riddick."

He crossed his arms. "Mm." He shook his head at me with a grim chuckle and turned away, but I caught him by the shoulder and steered him back to me. On a whim, I smiled and added, "And also…because of what Sarona said to you a few moments ago."

That seemed to strike a note. He almost flinched. I could see the cords of his neck—sternocleidomastoid left and right—tighten momentarily. "That so?" He had lowered his voice to a purr. "You think you know what she said?"

Behind us, Maddie suddenly looked at Sarona, and the two of them stood and exited the room, Maddie staring over her shoulder as she went. We were alone. For a brief moment, I wondered if it had been wise to bluff when I knew he would call it. I really, really wanted those drugs back. How could I read him now, the way I had so easily read Maya Umplett? His face told me so little. He seemed to have mastered the art of stillness.

"I'm not telepathic yet," I answered wryly. "But I do know that for now, you and she are at an impasse. You and I are, as well."

"No, you and me are somewhere else, Angelface. Protecting your ass isn't the only job I'm here to do. I'm not even here to let you use my brain for a map. I know you think these telepaths are on your side, but they're not."

"Of course they're not," I said, not without a note of weariness in my voice. "They're on their own side, the side of survival. They want to live, too. I'm a means to that end. So are you. So is Maddie."

"That's right. You know what's at stake." He cocked his head and brought his face closer to mine. "So what wouldn't you be willing to do to make somebody do what you wanted?"

"You think she's lying?"

"Just tellin' half-truths. Tell somebody something with just enough truth to it, and you can sell it to 'em easy. Especially somebody looking everywhere for something stable to hold on to."

"So what are you saying?"

Riddick shrugged. "Just don't believe everything these people tell you. The old lady said you were a real good reader back in the slam. Now that you're clean, you can't do it anymore. Makes you vulnerable. I think Sarona's tellin' the truth about you and your background. But that stuff about Mr. X? Bullshit. She knows where he is. She just doesn't want you going back and getting those drugs. You better believe that once all this is done, they're never gonna let you go. This'll be your new slam, for the rest of your life."

Of course….

"Mr. X told you to bring me here, but no one has ever heard of this place. It's not in any of the star-charts. But Mr. X gave you perfect coordinates. No one who knew anything about my past would want to lose me," I murmured in horror, "which means that Mr. X must answer to someone _here_. The drugs must be here. They couldn't possibly know what state I would be in when we reached this place. I could've easily wiped out the whole planet just like…last time. So they would keep them on hand." I began pacing restlessly. If only I could make my mind work properly! If ever there was a situation requiring proper analysis, it was surely this one! "And they'll need them when I come back—my bet is that Mr. X will hack the ship again and force us here. We need to—"

Riddick placed a finger over my lips. "Stop thinking. Don't talk. Don't think about anything except for breathing and listen to what I say. You don't need drugs; you need _me_. We're on a planet of telepaths. Making plans isn't going to work if they all know what we're thinking. They want to train you to be like them. A brainiac, a thinker, the way you were, but worse. But I'm gonna teach you what I do best. How to be an animal. Telepaths can't read instincts. But soon, _you're_ gonna be able to _feel_ them. No planning, no strategy. Just act. That's how we beat this. They probably already know we're gonna try something, but they don't know what, because we don't, either. But when the time comes, you just follow me."

"Why do you care?" I murmured against his finger.

"I've got my reasons."

"Naturally."

He moved his finger and put it under my chin. "Natural is the name of the game. Your training starts right now. You need to rely on all your senses and move with 'em, the way I do. I look at you. You're beautiful, and you've got a beautiful voice. But not just that. You smell beautiful, you feel beautiful, and you _taste_ beautiful. I want you, Angelface, and I know you want me. That's not something I have to think about. It's instinct. So. Lesson one."

I felt his hands close over my waist, and as he lifted me into the air, his moonstone eyes swallowed me whole.


	11. Chapter 11

**(explicit content, ladies and gents)**

**Eleven**

_**Richard B. Riddick**_

She looked like a dancer with her toes on point in the air. The fingers of my left hand were near the sweet spot, fourth lumbar down—the abdominal aorta—but shivs were the last thing on my mind. She was looking down at me while I held her up, shimmering purple and yellow and white like she had a halo all around her. Angelface. They'd tried to beat the wild out of her with their mindfuck drugs and doubletalk bullshit. And there she was, close to me, but not ready to let go of all that, yet. Too bad. There wasn't any time to fuck around. I was going for it.

"I saw this in cryo-sleep," she whispered. "When I left Goliath with Maddie, I was here for just a moment, and then it was gone."

Her breath was sweet and warm. "What'd I tell you about thinking?" I reminded her, putting her down. But her hair swung over her shoulders and her scent hit me again as the smooth strands glided down my chest. I caught a handful of it and brought it to my face, drawing her to me with my other hand by the small of her back. That sweet smell….

Always went straight to my head, made me feel like I'd just downed a bottle. I'd smelled it when she leaned over me in the goddamn ship, when she did it on purpose. I pulled her closer, tasting the skin of her neck, where the jugular was pulsing hard. I hadn't tasted woman in a long time, besides the pat-down in the Pirahna, and it was never as good as this. Goosebumps were rising on her skin, and her fingers found the bottom of my shirt. Gripped it. And yanked it over my head. It forced me to let her go for only a second.

"Good girl," I growled. That was more like it. Her clothes came off even easier, and the sight of her glowing skin laid bare…well. That's for me to know. What I will say is that you never saw anything more beautiful than Angelface vulnerable, staring back at you with fire in her eyes. Makes you feel like you don't know what you've just done, or what she's gonna do to you for it. I heard her breathe in as her hand flew toward my face. Not to hit me. To grab me by the jaw, pull my head down, and kiss me. The taste of her…she bit my lower lip, and I stopped giving a fuck about the telepaths, the price on my head, and the whole damn universe. It could've all gone up in flames. This woman belonged to me. She was mine. I was going to make sure we both knew it.

_**Angelface**_

Riddick slid his hands into my hair and grabbed fistfuls of it, pulling down so that my chin was forced up. I felt lips and teeth at my exposed throat, my collar bone, my breast, and it was all I could do not to cry out—half from fear, half from exhilaration.

"Don't you _dare _hold back," he growled. "Because I won't."

Don't hold back? That was fair enough. I felt a surge of something dark rise within me to throw a shadow over my pleasure. It was a warm shadow, and I liked it.

"You," I said in a low voice, "will _not_ order _me_."

Then he was on the ground, splayed flat on his back, every muscle in his body straining against the invisible power that held him. A look of shock crossed his face. It should have been mirrored in mine, but I was beyond rational thought. I bent over him and placed a finger beneath his chin.

"You will not give me commands," I murmured softly into his ear, nibbling the lobe. A ripple of muscle movement as his back arched. Sweat stood out on his skin like dew. My fingertips dragged themselves downward to undo his pants, leaving light tracks over his chest and stomach.

"You will never own me, Riddick," I said, running my lips over his exposed left hip. I bit it, and he let out a gasp of pleasure. "That is because in life, we own nothing."

My tongue trailed upward lightly over his skin until I came to his chest. I was leaning over him now on all fours, and I looked into his eyes. He was very still now, watching me. Waiting for an opportunity to strike. Well, I would give it to him. I let my lips hover over his. "Because you will never own me, you will never lose me, either. And I will never lose you, Richard Riddick."

I sat back gently, resting squarely on his pelvis, where heat radiated from its hard center. "Now. Get up."

I felt my will release him, and in an instant he was on top of me. He did not take me, then. We took each other. Our minds and bodies were flames licking at one another, sucking air until it seemed there was none left to be had.


End file.
